Captain Nobody (9 page)

She looked up and saw me.

Every head turned to follow her gaze. Twenty-nine pairs of eyes burned into me, but rather than shrinking in my seat, I sat up straight and tall.

“Uhhhh . . . hello, Newton,” she stammered.

“Good morning, Mrs. Young,” I answered.

“My. You look . . . uh . . .”

“Like a whack-job,” Basher coughed, which made a lot of kids laugh.

“Settle down,” Mrs. Young warned as she stepped from behind her desk and looked me up and down. “Let me guess: This was your costume last night, was it?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I answered.

“And is there a reason that you've chosen to wear last night's costume to school this morning?”

I shrugged. “It felt right.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Young nodded.

A few kids snickered, but not as many as before; Mrs. Young's serious tone was having a calming effect on my classmates. “I don't believe I know this . . . character,” she said. “Does he have a name?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Cecil beat me to it.

“Uh, hello?” he exclaimed. “Everybody knows Captain Nobody!”

“Captain Nobody?” Mrs. Young looked startled by the information. Several kids wondered, “Huh?” “Captain Nobody?” “Who's that?”

JJ stood up. “Oh, come on! Don't tell me you don't recognize Captain Nobody. Defender of the little guy? Champion of the downtrodden?”

She was so passionate and convincing that, almost in unison, my classmates grunted, “Oh. Him,” and they nodded as if they had known my name all along.

Mrs. Young seemed to be giving the situation some thought. She looked at me with a sympathetic smile and asked, “Newt? How's your brother?”

“Unacceptable!” Principal Toomey banged his desk. “The boy's obviously toying with us.”

I sat outside his office and listened through the half-open door while he and Mrs. Young discussed me. Or, rather, Captain Nobody.

“But I'm sure you heard about what happened to Chris Newman at the Big Game,” Mrs. Young said.

“Heard about it? I was there!” Mr. Toomey boomed. “A terrible moment.”

“I agree,” Mrs. Young said. “I was there, too.”

“But what's that got to do with this boy sitting outside my office in a Halloween costume?”

“This ‘boy,' Mr. Toomey, is Newton Newman. Chris Newman's younger brother.”

“What?” barked Mr. Toomey. “I didn't know Chris Newman
had
a younger brother.”

“Well, he does,” Mrs. Young replied. “And I can only imagine that this weekend hasn't been an easy one for the Newman family.”

“No, I'm sure,” Mr. Toomey mumbled. “So what are you saying?”

“I'm only saying that, with his brother in the hospital and both his parents distracted, life at Newton's house may be a little . . . chaotic right now.”

“So you think this wacky costume that Newell is wearing—”

“Newton.”

“—that Newton is wearing is somehow a result of that chaos?”

“I do. It doesn't worry me that he's wearing that costume. What worries me is his state of mind.”

“Why? What's his state of mind?”

“Well,” Mrs. Young explained carefully, “he's asking to be called Captain Nobody.”

“He
what
?”

I heard Mr. Toomey pick up the phone and call Mr. Brockman, the school counselor. Ten seconds later, Mr. Brockman clomped through the waiting room. He glanced at me as he entered the principal's office and shut the door.

Shortly after that, Mrs. Marcus, the school nurse, hurried in to join them. For about twenty minutes, all I could hear was murmuring, before the door opened and the four adults filed into the waiting room. I stood and faced them.

“We're very sorry about your brother's accident,” Mrs. Young said.

“He's going to be okay, Mrs. Young,” I assured her.

The adults all exchanged solemn looks.

“Of course he is,” Mrs. Marcus nodded.

She shot a look at Mr. Toomey, which seemed to be a cue for him to speak. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and smiled down at me.

“And, I want you to know, young man, Captain Nobody is always welcome in this school.”

“Thank you, Mr. Toomey,” I said. “Can I go back to class now?”

“Check it out, check it out!” Cecil whispered excitedly when I set my tray down next to his and JJ's at lunch period.

“What?” I asked.

“Don't look now, but”—JJ giggled—“just look around.”

I craned my neck to find that most of the kids in the cafeteria were gawking at our table.

“I said don't look!”
hissed JJ.

“But you also said, ‘look around,'” I whispered out the side of my mouth.

“Y'see what's happening?” Cecil asked. “Can you feel the electricity?”

“I just see a lot of people who've stopped chewing,” I muttered. “You'd think people had never seen old gym clothes before.”

“It's not just the clothes.” Cecil rapped on the lunch table to make his point. “No! They're diggin' the whole Captain Nobody
vibe
.”

“Y'think?”

He and JJ nodded solemnly.

“So, here's what we gotta do,” Cecil announced. “From now on, you're gonna be Captain Nobody, and we're gonna be your . . . your . . .” He whipped around to JJ. “What'd you say they call those guys?”

JJ quickly answered, “Sidekicks.”

“Sidekicks. Exactly!” Cecil whooped. “So, you're gonna be the one who has adventures, and we're gonna be the ones by your side.
Kickin'.
Like Batman has Robin, y'know? Or Superman has Jimmy Aspirin.”

“Olsen,” JJ corrected him. “Jimmy Olsen.”

“Wait, wait, wait, guys!” I held up both hands. “You're forgetting: I don't have ‘adventures.'”

“Not yet!” Cecil said. “But when me and JJ see something suspicious, y'know, and we call you on our cell phones . . .”

“But none of us has a cell phone,” JJ interrupted.

“True!” declared Cecil, as if he'd been waiting for that cue. “And that's why we're all going to carry one of these.”

From his backpack, Cecil slid a walkie-talkie across the table to me. That's when I began to suspect that maybe the two of them had practiced this little scene in advance.

“I still had these in my locker from a report I did on radio waves,” Cecil quickly explained. “I've only got one for me and you right now, but tomorrow, JJ, I'll bring one for you, too.”

“And why do I need this?” I asked, inspecting the walkie-talkie.

“So when there's an emergency . . . ,” Cecil started.

“. . . we can call on you,” JJ finished.

“Why would you guys ‘call on me'?” I asked.

“In case there's . . . I don't know . . .
danger
?” Cecil suggested.

“He's right,” JJ jumped in. “What if somebody needs saving? Or some wrong needs righting or—”

“Stop!” I came very close to shouting. “This is Appleton. Nothing ever happens here. Nothing ever happens to me. I only dressed like this today because . . . because it felt good.”

“And it's only gonna feel better,” Cecil promised.

JJ looked me in the eyes. “Look what happened, Newt . . . I mean,
Captain
, in just one morning. You heard how Mrs. Young talked to you. You feel what happens when you walk into a room. You see the looks on everybody's faces.”

“But what if I wake up tomorrow morning and decide I want to be Newt?”

“Why would you do that?” Cecil was astonished.

“Why wouldn't I?”

“Because,” JJ almost wailed, “as long as you're Captain Nobody, and we're by your side, people can't ignore us . . .
ever, ever again
!”

I never would have expected the changes I saw in my schoolmates. As the day went on, I got the feeling that the theory linking my appearance as Captain Nobody with my brother's accident had made the rounds. By the end of school, the teasing I encountered earlier had turned to curiosity and even sympathy. People who had sneered or stared bug-eyed before lunch began asking, “Howzitgoin'?” as they passed me in the hallways. A few even patted me on my cape and encouraged me to “be strong.”

As I walked home that afternoon, amused and puzzled by my day, I remembered that my parents hadn't seen me yet. How would they react? They might have laughed to see me in Chris's old clothes on Halloween night, but what if they freaked out now? Upsetting them was the last thing I wanted to do.

I broke into a run, determined to get back home and change before Mom or Dad got back from the hospital. And I would have made it, too, if Cecil's walkie-talkie hadn't squawked just then.

“This is Cecil Butterworth calling Captain Nobody. Come in. Over,”
came the scratchy voice from inside my backpack.

For a moment I considered ignoring Cecil, but when he added,
“I'm not foolin' around. Over,”
I laughed and pulled the walkie-talkie from my bag.

“What do you want, Cecil?”

He sounded out of breath.
“When you're finished talking, you're supposed to say, ‘over,'”
he said.
“Over.”

I sighed. “Okay. ‘Over,' already.”

“That's better,”
he replied.
“Captain Nobody, come quick! Over.”

“What? Why?” There was a long silence until I figured out what he was waiting for. I pressed the “send” button and grumbled, “Over.”

“I can't explain, but meet me in three minutes at the corner of Warren and Kander. Over,”
he said. And before I could say, “What for?” Cecil snapped off his receiver.

I paced back and forth on the sidewalk, caught halfway between my house and the street corner Cecil had named. The way Cecil had shouted
“Captain Nobody, come quick!”
had tweaked my curiosity. So I had a choice: I could go home and change clothes in time to greet my parents, or I could spend just a
little
longer as my inner other
.

What would you have done?